Chinese Religions Discuss Taoism and Term Paper

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2. Discuss the concepts of non-action and spontaneity (tzu-ran) in the Tao-Te-Ching and Chuang-Tzu

The main tenants of Taoism were put forth by Lao Tzu and Chuang-Tzu in their writings. The principles of non-action and spontaneity were the most important principles that the Taoists preached, and were central to their understanding of true knowledge. Paradoxically, they believed that knowledge is not to be attained by accumulation of information, but actually by diminishing the quantity of information:

Without stirring abroad / One can know the whole world; / Without looking out the window / One can see the way of heaven. / the further one goes / the less one knows."(Tzu)

From this, the Taoists derived the principle of non-action or stillness, which implied that the way or the "tao" is to be seen by looking deeper into things, rather than by pursuing learning. Non-action was preferred to action because it was believed that meditation and insight were superior to learning:

In the pursuit of learning one knows more every day;

In the pursuit of the way one does less every day.

One does less and less until one does nothing at all, and when one does nothing at all there is nothing that is undone.

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Instead, spontaneity and individual freedom were praised as forms of manifestation of the instinctual over the assertive form of action. Instead of the purposeful and the determined, the Taoist preferred the way that led to freedom of thought and impulse. The "tao" in itself was believed to be impossible to be named and explained, which was meant to define it as a way beyond the usual states of mind. The main essential principle in the sacred writings of Taoism was that of the complementarity, of the dualism of the yin and yang which were symbols for all the opposed qualities and natures in the universe. The two opposed symbols emphasized that the world is made of contraries, and that the way to truth is to achieve an unified view of these contraries, so as to see the universe from the perspective of plenitude and totality.

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